I got three different people asking me if I agreed with some recent posts by Michael Stackpole. Read his most recent post here.
My short answer is yes. Michael and I and Kris and a number of other writers who have the basic same attitudes came into this business at the same time and we have been talking with each other off and on for decades.
Almost all of us believe writers should take more control of their careers. And we have been pushing different aspects of this same topic in different ways for a number of years now, trying to clear out myths. For example, if you look back at the four Killing Sacred Cows of Publishing posts on Agents, I’ve basically been hammering home the one principle of writers taking control of things they should have control over. Laura Resnick has been saying the same thing in her wonderful comments after each chapter.
Control.
The basic is this: Take control over what you can take control over. Be smart in who you give control to. Try to keep as much control as possible. That applies to all aspects of this business.
Michael’s recent post about how you don’t have control in certain areas is correct. We cede that control to publishers in contracts, which is why contracts are so critically important. He’s trying to get writers to do two things. One, stop worrying about what you can’t control and two, take control of what you can control. Michael and I and Kris and others are taking control more and more over certain “publishing” aspects of our work because this wonderful new world has allowed us to.
But do we still sell into New York, sign contracts with publishers, and then hope for the best luck, as Michael says? Yes. Because Luck, or as I call it, “The X-Factor” has a huge play in some things. If you had your book come out on 9/11/01, you had some really bad luck. Stephanie Meyers had some really, really great luck. It happens. No control. Can’t get control in those areas, stop trying.
But as Michael says about ways of publishing, and Laura and I have been saying about the agent aspect of your business, you can and should gain as much real control as you can get.
I know how resistant writers can be about wanting to work. And gaining control takes work because first you have to learn how and then you actually have to do it. And worst yet, you have to climb past the myths and fear. That’s work, plain and simple.
But there is one secret that Michael alludes to and has talked about on his blog, and the one that I have shouted about, and Kris has talked about on her blog. One simple secret. Take as much control of everything as you can and NEVER STOP WRITING AND PUBLISHING.
You will make mistakes, learn from them and keep going. Your career will get hit with bad X-Factors(luck) at times, learn from the hits and keep going. Agents will hurt you because you let them, learn from the mistakes and keep going. Publishers will kill your book without meaning to in one way or another. Learn what you can and keep going.
Keep control where you can and when you do decide to cede it to another person or business, for heaven’s sake, be smart about it. In so many hundreds of thousands of words, that’s all we’re all saying.
So again, the short answer to the question “Do I agree with what Michael Stackpole is saying on his blog?”
Yes.
I’m just tired of all the anger and passion and judging. The joy some people are having vilifying Amazon is just amazing to me. I feel badly for Macmillan authors, I do. All that Amazon has done (or tried to do) is actually better for me as a writer with my current publishers, as a writer who will branch out and try self-pubbing a few titles (I just can’t pass up 70%), and as a reader (especially as a reader).
I know authors are nervous; the whole country in every career is freaking nervous. We’re in a recession. I just get tired of the fear and anger masquerading as scathing judgment at the first sight of any possible scapegoat, whether it be Amazon, ebooks, e-readers, small presses, self-publishing, whatever.
Just check out the landscape, pick your path, and start walking. Shaking your fists at the weather isn’t going to change it.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but the uncontrollable variables are a big reason why my morale plummeted several times when I was unsold — and despaired of ever getting published at all.
All the obstacles seemed too high, the market was forever in danger of crashing utterly, if all the currently-published pros were panicking what chance would I have, etc, etc.
At some point I had to just switch off the din of internal Doomsday Questioning and just get back to the writing, and let the other stuff take care of itself when I got to it.
Now that I’ve broken the glass a little, I can safely broaden my “lane” of concern, but still, there is such a huge, dark cloud over all of it I have to shake my head and say, “whatever,” and go back to working on the next manuscript, sending it out, and so forth. The only best practice I can discern is to never not have something cooking on the stove, and to try and have as many Magic Pies (your bakery analogy) out in the world as possible, so that I have a statistical chance of selling more often and then, hopefully, a statistical chance that one of those sales goes Big.
Meanwhile, I try to focus on what I can control within the limits of my financial and mental ability, and not worry too much about the rest. The sky is not falling, the world is not ending, and while things can and do change, it’s not worth running and hiding in a dark closet and being paralyzed with fear.
I’m very resistant to wanting to work. Some think I am impervious! *grin*
Great advice, btw, from both of you.
I’m amazed at how many writers spent time worrying about the amazon v. macmillan thing and probably think that their ‘internet uprising’ had a huge impact on the negotiations.
Pretty sure the same thing would have happened if no one said anything…
As counter-intuitive as it might seem, I just remind myself of the 30s and 40s, the Great Depression, the stock market crash of ’29. (I wasn’t around then. I’m not that old.
) But my point is that writers kept writing, publishers kept publishing. Maybe not as many writers and publishers as before those economic hard times struck, but the wheel kept right on rollin’, regardless.
Those who want to step out of the way are welcome to do so. They’re just making more room for me. And if the changes of this era will make things even better for someone like myself, that’s all the better, too. Bring it on!
I read that post of his, and BOY did I misread the first time. Don’t know if I was skimming it too fast, or what. Because initially it sounded like he was saying, “It’s out of your control, everything comes down to luck, so what happens, happens and oh well!” Couldn’t be further from what he was actually saying, of course. Thanks for clarifying. (And thanks to Michael for the great post.)
Mike Stackpole is doing more than just giving advice; he’s walking the walk. He has been experimenting with ebooks, social media promotion, and self-publishing. His whole career offers many lessons in good management.
By the way, your site is showing me a huge number of spam links. Looks like your blog has been hacked with a database injection attack of the kind described here:
http://digwp.com/2009/06/spam-link-injection-hacked/
Allen, thanks. And we got it cleared up. Much appreciated.
Cheers
Dean
I am following the Amazon v. Macmillan story because I find it interesting to see it played out rather publicly.
I think that Amazon has a right to try and negotiate prices, but I also feel that the source of the product has a right to dictate price levels to its distributors, and that’s what Amazon is.
I think both parties have made, and likely will continue to make, errors in this negotiation, but removing the option to buy all the Macmillan titles is crazy. It could have been handled better.
I personally do not like Amazon. I prefer to go to mortar-and-brick bookstores. That said, they have a right to exist, and many millions of others actually prefer them. That is free-market economy.
For Christmas, I received an Amazon gift card, which I used, reluctantly, this past weekend, because there were things I needed and I had that card burning a hole in my wallet.
In addition to my previous dislike for the company, I found the buying process has become excessively complicated and confusing, and it turned me off permanently. For instance, while making an order, you can’t see what the final charges will be, including the shipping, until the very last page. That seems crazy to me. And there is no way, once you start the buying process, to go back to your cart or continue shopping if you change your mind.
While I think both sides have legitimate concerns, I think that people defending Amazon have used some fallacious arguments. The one that sticks out in my mind is that it costs about $0.15 to produce an eBook, so they should be less expensive than Macmillan wants them to be. By that rationale, Amazon should delist all their clothing suppliers because everyone knows the markup on clothing is ridiculous. But they don’t, because they’re not marketing a means of deploying those clothes to you for $250 and trying to corner the market.
Furthermore, price levels have absolutely nothing to do with costs of production, in any industry. Prices are not determined by cost, ever. Prices are determined by what the market will bear, and that is indicated by demand, as we all learned in high school. If demand is too high, the prices are raised to generate the capital to produce more product. If demand is low, prices are reduced to sell the product through and recoup the investment. If the market will pay $14.99 for an eBook that costs $0.15 or $0.75 or whatever to produce, nobody cares.
Sure, that will price some people out of the market, but that’s the way it is, with everything that we buy. We all choose to go to certain stores, restaurants, and any other type of retailer, based on the pricing levels. I don’t like to go to expensive steak restaurants, because I find their pricing levels far too high for what they provide. Yet, those restaurants are almost always filled to capacity.
It’s all a personal choice. If people don’t want to pay $12.99 or $14.99 for a newly-listed eBook, they will either buy a less expensive eBook or trade or mass-market paperback, much the same as people who buy only paperbacks in lieu of hardcovers today.
Personally, while I’m interested to see how the eBook craze will settle out, I have a feeling that the world will claw my paper books from my cold, dead hands. I have no desire whatsoever to read a book electronically, but I’d be a fool to ignore the trend from a business standpoint.
I could go all day, but I’d better just call it a wrap.
Sorry, not going to get any comments from my on Amazon and MacMillian. Other than I once again am ashamed of the stupidity of authors in general when it comes to business of any level. (Not you, Jeremy, just authors in general.)
Anyone with any business sense knew exactly what was happening, knew exactly why, and how important this early fight is for publishing. And how little any author can make any difference in it. And actually, how there are aspects of both sides of this accounting fight that help authors. If authors knew business, they would have just sat back and kept their mouths shut and watched. But alas, never underestimate the ability of a group of writers to put a collective foot in their mouths and look like fools.
Instead of authors screaming at the stupid waste of the returns system, or the fantastically stupid agent system, they decide to scream about a fight between two large corporations that they can’t do anything about and don’t understand. Sigh…makes me want to climb back into my hole and just write and never call myself a writer.
Now, Jeremy, let me direct a comment to you. Why wouldn’t you like Amazon? Actually, I have a possible chapter in Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing about the myths of Amazon. And you spouted a couple of them I’m afraid.
For example, Kris and I live on the Oregon Coast. We have four used bookstores and a small ID that sells new books, sort of. It’s very small. Our choice to buy new books is Amazon or other online sites or drive an hour over a mountain range to get to a bad Boarders. We make the trip there and to other stories in the valley about twice a month because it’s part of our job, but most of the time we use Amazon and other online sits. And trust me, for a large part of the population of this country, Amazon has been a perfect solution.
And we won’t even talk about the good they have done for reading and author selling with Kindle.
Another part of the myth is that ranking system they use. Some authors watch it all the time with their books, which just makes me laugh. A real silly myth, that one. And, of course, the silly myth that book discounting between the major online chains hurts a writer’s bottom line. More myth spread by people who do not know how books are sold. So Jeremy, you might want to step back and ask yourself why you feel the way you do about Amazon and where you learned your “facts” about them. Because of Amazon and the model they have built, your books will get to people who would never see them in a brick and mortar store. And that’s a good thing for reading and authors.
Okay, Dean, this is the part where I beg you to include the Amazon chapter in Killing the Sacred Cows.
I’m also curious about what Jeremy doesn’t like about Amazon. (Not picking on you or anything, Jeremy, just wondering)
I like Amazon because I can find pretty much any book I want on their site. For instance, a little while ago, I picked up an out of print book about a guy stuck in a time warp involving the Titanic, among other things. Let’s see what was it called again…Oh yeah, ‘Laying the Music to Rest’ by Dean Something-or-Other. (Thanks folks, I’ll be here all week. The ten o’clock show it different than the eight o’clock show. Try the veal it’s delicious.)
So without Amazon it would be harder. Not neccessarily impossible, but a bigger pain. And, yes, I also use Amazon for new books that my local bookstores don’t have. I’m impatient like that.
As a quick side note, Dean , I just started reading ‘Laying the Music to Rest today (hence the comment) and couldn’t help but notice the mention of the Garden Lounge. Is this where that series of stories got started? If so I’m a so totally stoked. I love those stories.
Which actually brings this comment back full circle because without digital publsihing I wouldn’t have read one of the stories in the series, ‘He Could’ve Coped With Dragons,’ which is the best story I’ve EVER read about a time traveling cocktail napkin.
Steve
Thanks, Steve. Actually hoping to get up a few more of the Jukebox/Garden Lounge stories on Kindle and Scribd, just haven’t gotten to it with the book deadlines at the moment. But I will. Thanks for the nice comments on that, and yes, the Garden Lounge in the very strange first novel is the same one. You are one of few who spotted that. Someday I will do the jukebox novel and tell the origin of all these stories.
Amazon is heaven for writers because of something only long term writers think about. Back List. Few of you here remember the days of publishing when the Mall stores ruled. Author back lists, which had supported many an author, vanished. However, with the advent of the superstores and their need for wallpaper, back list returned. And with Amazon, back lists are heaven for authors. And then you add in Kindle and the other e-read devices coming and wow are short story writers and authors with back list doing happy dances.
I have been saying for a few years now that we are in the new golden age of publishing and again writers can make a living from short fiction. They just have to be very smart about it. Amazon has its issues, but for writers, the advent of Amazon has been a cash machine.
Jeremy wrote: And there is no way, once you start the buying process, to go back to your cart or continue shopping if you change your mind.
Not true.
Use the back button of your browser, or just retype the URL for Amazon. So long as you don’t complete the buying process, so long as you have an Amazon account, whatever you’ve put in your cart isn’t going anywhere. I have things in my Amazon cart right now that have been there for MONTHS!
I use Amazon a LOT; almost exclusively, in fact. And this despite there being nine Barnes & Nobles, at least two Borders, at least one Books-A-Million, and even a Waldenbooks Express all within less than 25 miles of where I live. And this is also despite having an account at Barnes & Noble’s web site, too — in fact, I prefer Amazon to Barnes & Noble when I shop on the web because Amazon offers deeper discounts (even with a Barnes & Noble membership card). Living in the DC Metro area has its benefits — when you don’t have two-and-a-half feet of snow all over the damned place, that is. LOL! The county plows STILL haven’t gotten to my neighborhood. Almost makes me wish I was back in the Chicago Metro area again. They handle snow removal much better. Fortunately, the nearest supermarket is also within walking distance.
To my comment above, I’ll add that it does assume that you have an Amazon account. I was a little bit hasty.
I just tried it, though, making sure that I wasn’t logged in to my account, and I can edit my shopping cart, and hit the back button on my browser and continue shopping. I also started the purchasing process, then interrupted it and continued to shopping, and everything I had put in my cart remained there. This should be true for anyone, even someone who doesn’t have an Amazon account. As long as you don’t interrupt your shopping by leaving their web site, the items in your shopping cart will remain there.
A little off topic, perhaps, but since the subject came up I thought it important to note what is and isn’t true.
One thing I love about the experience of shopping via Amazon, is that I’m able to buy books via third-party vendors. I once ordered a used and out-of-print book that they noted would take some time for them to get to me. I forgot about it . . . and then A YEAR LATER! they found the book and mailed it to me. I thought it absolutely fabulous when the book appeared on my doorstep and I was quite happy that they didn’t stop looking for that book when I placed my order.
G.D, exactly. The book I had come out in limited run only in department stores I found through a third party through Amazon. Never would have even had an author copy without that. Good point.
True, Dean. I should be more clear. I mean to say that I don’t like purchasing from Amazon, because I find the site bloated and cumbersome, and I prefer not to deal with that if I can help it.
That said, they absolutely have the best selection, the best prices, and more than reasonable delivery. But I only use them when I have to – when I can’t get what I want somewhere else. Maybe that makes me a fool.
However, I would never be so foolish to refuse to sell something via Amazon, as I recognize the strength of the Amazon distribution model and the power that the company holds in the industry. I suppose that’s a double-standard, but I’m not sure how I feel about that.
Jeremy, Amazon holds less power than any of the major bookstore chains and less than Walmart and other box chains. Granted, they sell a lot of books and help with back lists of authors and short story sales through Kindle and the like, but in the overall book industry, they don’t hold that much power, actually. Authors seem to think they do because they are so out front, thus the big shouting about this last weekend silliness, but note, MacMillian wasn’t that worried about it. They didn’t like it, but they sure weren’t going to cave and thus Amazon had to. Hurt Amazon far worse than it could ever hurt MacMillian authors or the company.
Authors who didn’t know anything about the overall structure of the business were worried and yelling, but here is the hard truth. The snowstorm this week in the east will have more of an impact on overall book sales of MacMillian titles than Amazon not selling any of them. Far more.
Writers should be shouting at the storm gods don’t you think?
I feel it is never wise to shout at storm gods. I find a questioning disapproval is always best.
Was 30″ really necessary? Really? 10″ wouldn’t have done it?
To me, the Mac/Ama thing was always about the top 5% of authors and the people I see screaming are in, well, not the top 10%.
Point taken, Dean. I can feel a satirical article in me along the theme that writers should be angry at Mother Nature. Of course, one can’t get too angry at her, or she’ll just strike at you repeatedly.
Given what you’ve said, why do you think that Amazon is so prominent? Is it just another myth and they, in fact, are not such a big deal to the industry? Or is it because people see it as the future of publishing, or something else?
I should make less statements and instead ask more questions. Probably good advice for everyone.
Jeremy, they are prominent because they were first and they made a new system work. Also, what makes them successful makes them appear bigger than they really are. And that’s their availability to everyone and easy access. No human can get a sense of how really large B&N is because you can’t put all their stores together and numbers of superstores just don’t mean anything in scale. But we all see Amazon. So they have more “public” power than they actually have in sales power. However, that said, their sales power is not small by any means. I have an access gate to them on my site as do just about every other writer. Brilliant on their part.
As for them being the future, of course they will, or a system like them, will be with us from now on out. I honestly don’t see the structure as we have it now changing much. I see details changing, I see distribution to the structure changing, I see reading devices changing, but in the large scheme of things, all that is minor when held up against the overall structure. However, it’s in the details that the profit is made. Always keep in mind that as of this last year, electronic books (including text books) were less than 2% of all books produced and sold. Granted that is a large jump over last year, but we still need a couple of huge increases to get electronic books up to audio book level. Perspective for writers is always a difficult thing.
Alastair, I also go out of my way at times to support my local stores first before going online. I’d rather spend the money locally, to be honest, the bookstore owners in this area are all friends of mine and great people.
I have nothing against Amazon — and I love the fact that I can order stuff from Amazon.uk (both books and vids) that is otherwise unavailable here.
That said, I do support my local bookstores: Who Else Books for spec-fic, because they strongly support local authors (and have quite a collection — I saw some Pulphouse hardbacks last time I was in there); Tattered Cover (a big Denver-area indie, not quite on the scale of Powell’s) for general browsing; and Barnes & Noble if I need something Right Now. (You can order through the B&N website and pick it up in a half-our at a local brick’n'mortar if it’s in stock. Saves a lot of phoning around.)
Hi Dean,
Since you’ve mentioned Amazon a few times . . . I understand what you’re saying about the whole “tempest in a teapot” and the value of eMedia to backlist.
Nonetheless, that still leaves me wondering: why *shouldn’t* authors have been upset to have not just eTitles but all titles yanked from Amazon? Not that they needed to take sides, but why shouldn’t they remind readers about other sources such as Barnes and Nobles’ or Borders’ online stores? Amazon might not have a huge market share, but as you said, they are at the moment among the most visible.
Thanks! I think I’m missing some piece of the puzzle and am trying to figure out what.
Deborah, oh, authors can be upset, sure. It’s just like not having your book picked up for sale in Boarders. Always a bummer and cause for being upset when one of the chains you are hoping to pick up your book doesn’t. But as with that, this issue with Amazon was way, way out of any author’s control and just two large companies negotiating an accounting change caused by the introduction of the accounting method by I-Pad. Honestly having publisher’s control the sales price of their own books makes sense and helps the authors.
So upset is all right, shouting and boycotting was just silly, especially when it was clear it was only going to last a few days to a week. Cheers, Dean
Am I wrong to be cynical about the e-revolution in publishing?
For about twelve years now — ever since the internet went mainstream nationwide — I’ve heard and read about how the New York publishing model is at the tipping point: the authors will revolt, the digital publishers will rise and take over, the dysfunctional returns system is going to crash and burn and take the mega-publishers down with it, etc, etc.
Sounds nice, from a certain point of view. But at the same time it seems to be ignoring the actual consumer. Unlike music, I don’t think there are enough people — yet — who are willing to swap over to e-readers. Fiction reading isn’t just about words on an e-page. There is an entire dimension of tangibility that the e-revolution seems to be ignoring. So that while the gadgeteers and the geeks are frothing, most of the rest of the consumer world is kind of like, well, whatever, I’m still going down to the B&N or Borders or the local book shop, and doing it The Old Fashioned Way.
Sometimes I wonder if the future of publishing isn’t necessarily e-books, but on-demand book printing shops where you either order the book on-line and have it sent — print on-demand — to your house, or you order on-line and then go pick the book up at the bookstore, or maybe you go to the store and pick the book you want, and in ten minutes the backroom machinery churns out a paperback or hardcover edition for you. This would eliminate returns and the mountains of unsold books that get recycled every year. More efficient in terms of material and time, all that needs to happen is for the apparatus to be put in place.
Brad, oh, trust me, if anyone really knew the answers to looking into the future of publishing, that person would be fantastically rich.
The key to remember is that major book publishing isn’t going away, it’s actually growing, and slowly adapting, as is the fight we have just witnessed over accounting. I have been in this business and paying attention since the mid 1970′s and new writers constantly claim the business is about to go away. Not happening. The key to long term writers is to just float with the new stuff and use it to make a new cash stream.
Again, as I have said in a couple of posts, and in the how writers make money chapter, we function on cash streams. Advances for first publication novels in New York is just one cash stream, and rarely the biggest after a point. Electronic publishing brings in new cash streams, print on demand brings in new cash streams, lots and lots of cash streams. You just don’t know how many cash streams there are until you get down the road and open your eyes to them. Just think of every change as a new cash stream, not that it will crash the business. That way lies a long term career and a lot less stress shouting and worrying about nothing.
If there’s anything disheartening that I’ve discovered about pro authors in the last 24 months, it’s that many of them have an undending capacity for silly. And I don’t mean the ha-ha kind.
=^(
And here I’d spent all these years thinking that pro authors were an enlightened, wisened breed of human! P’shaw, p’shaw.
Brad, beginning level pro authors are who you are talking about. You didn’t see any of us older pros doing any shouting or being silly.
A book dealer friend of mine, someone who had been around a long, long time selling books and being around authors, one day called me a neo-pro after I had sold twenty short stories and my first novel. I objected because I thought that kind of track record made me into a full pro writer, but for years he kept calling me a neo-pro, until one day I asked him when he would stop calling me that. “When you have published over twenty novels and been around for twenty years you will be a full pro. Until then you are a neo-pro who doesn’t know squat.” I was insulted and grumpy about it, but one day I realized I had been around for twenty years and was past twenty novels and he hadn’t called me a neo-pro for a few years. And in hindsight, I knew he was right. Insulting, but right.
As I have said before, anyone can sell and publish a novel or five, but staying around for a long term career takes a certain mindset and ability to never say die. And that’s what I’m trying to help writers with here. All my advice is career advice.
Dean, I think your last comment was spot on. So many people seem to get caught up in the latest fad or trend and don’t keep their eye on the ball, so it’s great to have long term pros who are there to offer sane advice when everyone else seems to be running around screaming the sky is falling. I swear sometimes when I talk to these people I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.
Because of that I’d recommend that anyone reading this blog who’s serious about getting published at the VERY LEAST go to the Kris and Dean show. At the Kris and Dean show, you’ll gain a better idea of how the industry works and, even more importantly, get a peek into the minds of two very successful longtime pros.
I’m not publsihed YET but it helped me immeasurably. I have one story under consideration (it has been for five months so I consider that a good sign. It’s easier to reject a story than it is to buy one). I had one story that the editor of an anthology selected but when she submitted it to the publisher they rejected it(I have no clue how that works. Dean any comment?) But I’m still working at it and I’m pretty sure I’ll publish at a pro level this year. Even if I don’t I’ll still keep going because I see this like sales: it’s a numbers game. I know that doesn’t sound very creative or artistic but that’s the business side. Numbers are how all businesses work.
And that gives me hope and motivation.
Steve